"COMBINED" SCHOOLS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 234, 3 October 1932, Page 11

"COMBINED" SCHOOLS.

academic and technical \ MODERN AIM IN EDUCATION. OTAHUHU TYPICAL. "A few years will probably see all of our secondary schools 'combined schools' in character, if not in name. Old prejudices and 0,(1 jealousies may delay the reform in isolated cases." This opinion was expressed by the principal of the Otahuhu Technical High School, Mr. F. W. Martin, in a report in which he discussed the functions of ihis school, and the modern aim in post-primary education. Mr. Martin said the Otahuhu Technical High School was sometimes called the "Junior High School," sometimes the "Technical High School" or just the School." With this, uncertainty as to name it was perha<p& not unnatuial that there should exist also some uncertainty as to the precise function of the school and the extent to which it was designed to meet fully the educational needs of the boys and girls. Tracing the progressive steps taken during the last year, Mr. Martin said: "It should be a source of pleasure to all concerned to know that in spite of delays and financial difficulties there has been laid the foundations ofl the very type of school asked for at the first meeting of parents last year, namely, ft school which should offer both academic and technical courses and should provide in addition evening classes for those who are unable to attend a day school. This year we have been able to organise in the day school five courses a general course, better known as a matriculation course, which provides the instruction along academic lines, usually associated with schools of the 'Grammar' type, and four technical school courses —commercial, home science, industrial and agricultural. Origin of "Grammar" Schools. "The name 'technical school' is misleading; actually oiu- senior school is a 'combined school,' because it combines the functions of a Grammar school and a technical school. Those who are acquainted with the history of education in New Zealand know that the present division of our secondary education into the Grammar schools and technical hMi schools, which we now see in the larger centres, is due entirely to circumstances connected with their development When the Grammar schools were founded, 50 years ago, they were modelled as nearly as local circumstances would permit, on the Grammar schools which the early settlers left behind them in England. These schools in England, class schools undoubtedly, had even then many yeans of tradition behind them; practical, or technical' education was only beginning to be recognised as of any value. ■ "When the technical education movement spread to New Zealand about 30 years ago it began in what were known as evening continuation technical classes. Within the last 20 years the evening technical schools, in response to a strong demand for something more practical than was offered in the Grammar schools, have extended their work and developed into technical high schools, viz., day schools, to cover the ground left untouched by the Grammar school. In this way there developed a dual system of high school—the Grammar schools and ithe technical schools, often existing almost side by side, often jealous of each other, and each affecting to despise the-type of work dona in the other. .Broadening the Curricula. "Of recent years there bas been a strong movement towards broadening the curricula of secondary schools so as to include in one school both academic and technical courses. _ In several towns the old established higih schools and the technical high school liava been amalgamated under the name of combined school. New schools tend to be of the combined, or comprehensive, type from the outset, although a number of them may go by the name of technical high school. "Our school being a new one, the Education Department is free to develop it along what is now recognised to be the best lines, viz., as a comprehensive irfiool, where all types of children meet tinder the one roof, where each can pursue ihis own special bent, but where they share much in common and play together and work together, as they will do as eitizens in later years."